New friends in the classroom

Immersive experience sparks new interests

Evelyn Sankar (centre) took part in SHAD 2017 at the Memorial University of Newfoundland, where she listened to lectures and worked on an entrepreneurial project.

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 14/8/2017 (216 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

University is still a few years ahead, but St. James resident Evelyn Sankar is already mapping out her future.

The Sturgeon Heights student, going into Grade 11, recently attended SHAD 2017, a month-long educational program that takes place on a Canadian university campus. Sankar is currently enrolled in the International Baccalaureate program at her school, an advanced stream with a focus on post-secondary education.

Her work in the IB program as well as participation in several national extracurricular programs landed Sankar a hard-won spot at SHAD, which has produced 32 Rhodes Scholars. This year’s theme was looking at ways to reduce Canada’s carbon footprint.

“One of the first things they told us is it wouldn’t be the most fun month, but that it would help us the most, and I felt it was both of those,” Sankar said. Her group stayed at the Memorial University of Newfoundland in St. John’s.

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Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 14/8/2017 (216 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

University is still a few years ahead, but St. James resident Evelyn Sankar is already mapping out her future.

The Sturgeon Heights student, going into Grade 11, recently attended SHAD 2017, a month-long educational program that takes place on a Canadian university campus. Sankar is currently enrolled in the International Baccalaureate program at her school, an advanced stream with a focus on post-secondary education.

Her work in the IB program as well as participation in several national extracurricular programs landed Sankar a hard-won spot at SHAD, which has produced 32 Rhodes Scholars. This year’s theme was looking at ways to reduce Canada’s carbon footprint.

"One of the first things they told us is it wouldn’t be the most fun month, but that it would help us the most, and I felt it was both of those," Sankar said. Her group stayed at the Memorial University of Newfoundland in St. John’s.

"How it worked was we had about seven hours of class time a day and then we had an average of four or five hours working on something called a house project."

The project involved making a product and business plan, complete with marketing and financial information, and present it at the John Dobson Entrepreneurship Cup at the end of the month.

"The lectures were built to cultivate new interests in things we wouldn’t have been exposed to. I learned that I was interested in astrophysics and geology, which I had never had access to before. I wanted to go into neuroscience and I had an idea of that but we had a lot of lectures about clinical psychology and that solidified that’s what I want to do."

Sankar said she was lucky to get in, but wasn’t stuck on SHAD in particular—this summer, she just wanted to better her chances of getting into her top choice universities. She aims to be an anesthesiologist.

"I think (neuroscience) sounds like science fiction when you study it," she said. "We’re all controlled by a set of chemicals and we may or may not have free will and that’s something we might not ever know."

She says her favourite subjects are science and math. Sankar said she also loved getting a taste of university life by living on campus for almost a month with the other participants.

"I loved it, being able to live in the exact same place as all your friends," she said. "My roommate was from eastern Ontario. The differences of our backgrounds were subtle but allowed us to learn from each other, and that as an incredible experience. The group chat is still going and we still talk every day."

Sankar was the only participant from Manitoba. She hopes to get more students at her school interested in SHAD, and said there’s plenty for everyone to learn.

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